Stacy
by OverwhelmedAndTerrified
Summary: If blood red lipstick didn't catch his attention then she'd give up. For real this time. AU Twisted one-shot


**I'm not a huge Jo fan but she did sort of, kind of...in a way inspire this fic so now I'm a little conflicted...Anyway, this is my second ever story. AU Dacey. Please review.**

Lacey stared at her nearly vampiric reflection and sighed. If blood red lipstick didn't catch his attention then she'd give up. For real this time.

She licked her thumb and pointer finger then proceeded to smooth a particularly unruly curl. If Jo could see her now, all dolled up and running spit through her unapologetically curly hair, she'd laugh at the contrast and call her a prostitute. But that's why they'd been best friends since pee wee softball. Jo knew her, the real her, the her that opted for saliva coated fingertips over hairspray.

Lacey sighed again. What would Jo be doing right now? At Johnnycakes with Rico, balancing homework with a healthy dose of shits and giggles? At her house watching tonight's episode of UFC's Ultimate Fighter. Whatever it was, Lacey couldn't think about it now. She had to leave Jo, mixed martial arts, dirty sneakers, hoodies, and sloppy ponytails back in Tomboyland to move forward. Her fingers spit-smoothed another curl. Or at least that's what Sarita and Phoebe said. And who was Lacey, at the very bottom of the social totem pole, to argue with the queens of Spades and Hearts respectively?

She turned to the side and observed herself in the huge mirror over the sink. In ripped jeans and oversized sweatshirts she would've sworn on a stack of Stephen King novels that her figure was far more 'stick' than '8'. But the thigh skimming black tube dress Sarita lent her hugged curves se didn't even know existed. It's crazy how clothes worked that way. Combined with the hooker hair and hooker makeup, it was all such a remarkable difference from her normal, low maintenance look that it was jarring. It was weird.

"Really fucking weird." Lacey mumbled in response to her inner thoughts. How did she even get o this point? A week ago she was sharing chili cheese fries with Rico and Jo and moving through the halls of Green Grove High as an invisible entity. A week ago she was sports bras and mangled cuticles and split ends. But then the incident had occurred and paradigms shifted.

_"Jesus Christ!" Lacey exclaimed, squeezing her eyes shut tightly as a deep throbbing pain exploded in her frontal sinus. It's almost like the God's knew she was trying to rush to the bathroom before first bell and decided they didn't like that plan at all. She was just rounding the corner when some Miley wannabe really did come in like a goddamn wrecking ball. Her papers scattered everywhere, his books went flying, student bystanders laughed. It was all very 90's sitcom. _

_"Uuugh!" She pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead, "Walk much fuckface?" Her brown eyes tried to focus on the human sledgehammer but the pan intensified and shut them tightly instead._

_"Hey gimme a break you think I did this shit on purpose?"_

_And that voice was all it took to keep her eyes wide open._

_"Oh! Hiiii Danny..."_

Lacey studied her fresh manicure, frowning slightly at the memory. She had stuttered out something awkward as he helped her gather her worksheets. And when their hands brushed she could've sworn she was in some crappy romantic comedy. For a second she wholly believed they'd make the kind of eye contact that bore souls.

But no. In reality he just gave her the papers and said "Sorry again." with one of those smirky smiles that instantly makes her throat as dry as the Sahara. In her imagination he whispered "Lace" like he'd been searching for her his whole life and kissed her like she was his only means of survival.

She absolutely loved it when he called her Lace. Not that it happened anymore. They'd been paired up for a history project last year and actually gotten along for the duration. She always assumed he was just a cocky soccer jock, drunk on his own popularity. And he was. But he was also charming, witty, and sarcastic. And he called her Lace.

Somewhere between Hitler and the Polio vaccine, she'd fallen harder than she cared to admit. He was out of her league even for real-lie, non-sitcom standards. After the project was over she got a "Hey" or a "What's up" in the hallway every once in a while. That was it. Until they collided in the hallway.

Sarita and Phoebe had seen their awkward run in and were not about to pass up the opportunity to show just how charitable they could be to the popularity-challenged. That and the fact that giving makeovers was their own brand of heroine. According to them, stripper heels and a pretty little vapid head were like teenaged boy bait. If Lacey had been in her right mind she would've blatantly refused. But she wasn't in her right mind because he'd just touched her fingertips and gently rendered her senseless with that smile not 5 minutes before.

Ditching Rico and Jo the rest of the week for shopping trips and girl lessons all culminated in the ultimate final exam that weekend.

The party at Archie Yates' house was in full swing when she showed up with the girl. Noise and unfamiliarity immediately drove her upstairs to the nearest bathroom before anyone could even see her new look. She even had to admit that she looked smoking hot, like possibly the classiest hooker you've ever seen. But it came with this crippling insecurity that she never felt in her oversized New York Giants sweater and this increasing introversion that didn't start until the queens deemed her black nose ring "way too goth".

It's crazy how clothes worked that way.

She looked at herself in the mirror again. Her brown eyes seemed to burn gold underneath sexy layers of shadow and mascara. If he didn't notice her tonight, she was giving up. For real this time.

"It's about time Stacy!" Phoebe shouted over the deafening beat of something dubsteppy.

Lacey only unfolded her arms half way to give a little wave. She was over telling the ditzy brunette that her name was not fucking Stacy!

"Hey!" Lacey walked up to the girls, smiling from many miles outside of her comfort zone.

"You know Danny right?" Sarita feigned ignorance and tapped the guy behind her. He turned around and, sure enough, it was the boy to whom she'd dedicated several awful tattoo ideas. It was creepy and weird but it was strictly in the guilty pleasure section of Lacey's obsessive imagination. Still, she rubbed the seemingly arbitrary month, day, and year tattooed on her inner bicep with a self conscious thumb; as if he could look at the '**February 3, 2007**' on her skin and immediately know that she dreamt of getting '**Danny**' on the other arm. That way she'd have the day Judy Porter died, and life as Lacey knew it ended, on one side and the name of her first love, her new beginning, on the other.

They made eye contact and it happened. Lacey watched his eyes light up and immediately felt transported into some kind of Katherine Heigl, Julia Roberts, Sleepless in Seattle while a Pretty Woman wears 27 Dresses and teaches Miss Congeniality How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days type of alternate universe. It was the instantaneous connection she'd wanted in the hallway only 4 days ago.

"Hi." She knew she was speaking too softly to be heard.

"Holy red lipstick!" Danny grinned, allowing his gaze to travel downward. Lacey felt herself loving and hating his gorgeous brown eyes as they peeled back every thin layer she wore. She tried to focus on him and not squirm under that relentless stare. His shoulder length hair was pulled into this loose bun hat always seemed to be the optimum ratio of styled to messy. All of his hair was flawless actually. His moderate goatee-stache combo looked so fitting she was almost convinced he came out of the womb with it and spent the last 18 years sculpting to perfection.

"So uh...house party while Archie's parents are out of town huh?!" She began, needing to reel her thoughts back in. Standing there looking at each other all night wouldn't get them any closer to boyfriend-girlfriend status.

His gaze was even darker, the color of fertile soil, as it suddenly jumped from her chest to her eyes. She rubbed the tattoo faster as he simply stared for a second. By the time he spoke again that adorable smirk had spread luxuriously across his face and Lacey was practically swiping a thumb-sized rut into her arm.

Danny slowly brought a beer to his lips, "Well, as horny, liquor-craving, drug-addicted teens we felt obligated to reinforce the stereotype."

The only thing Lacey wanted to be more than the rim of that beer bottle was the actual beer flowing across it and ultimately into Danny Desai's undoubtedly sexy bloodstream.

But instead of saying that, thank God, she tried to be witty, "How very 'Can't Hardly Wait', 'House Party 4' of you!"

He winked and, if her dimples sank any deeper, they'd become permanent.

There was a very noticeable lapse in the conversation as their audience watched. Sarita and Phoebe were celebrating wildly in their heads. Danny couldn't keep his eyes off of their handiwork, and undivided male attention definitely spelled success. Danny's guy friends had been watching Lacey's ripe strawberry lips with vivid imagination, but the words coming out of it were of no consequence. It was probably all curling irons and nail polish anyway.

"Hey you wanna go somewhere and talk?" he asked casually before finishing the luckiest Budweiser in Green Grove and putting it on a nearby coffee table.

"Are you shitting m-! I mean uh..." Lacey recalled Sari-be's (Sarita and Phoebe's) femme lessons from a few days prior and stood up straight. She arched her back veeeeery subtly so her breasts sat even higher than the push up bra was already holding them. Biting her bottom lip, Lacey went full on girl and flipped a dark handful of her curly hair over one shoulder. Now to reel him in, she thought as her head tilted down a little and she looked up at him through her long, thick eyelashes.

"Sure." her voice brushed up against Danny's eardrums low, quite, and sexy. He took her hand with no hesitation. She relished in how icy cold the beer bottle had made his fingers. Who knew the old big-boobed airhead routine worked off the big screen!?

Around Archie's crowded living room, the eyes that weren't too low or bleary from a weed-vodka combo were envious and observant. Girls who'd always laughed at her careless style now scoffed at Lacey's flawless attire. Girls who'd already been wrapped around Danny Desai's skillful fingers before wanted to be her again, if only for 26 minutes, a discarded condom, and nothing more.

But Lacey couldn't see that, she was too busy memorizing the way those rebellious strands of hair curved along the nape of his neck, the way his back muscles flexed inconspicuously as he led her to the staircase.

"Be my James Dean?" she whispered to their intertwined fingers. Her heart thumped, anticipating a romance she could get behind, waiting for him to call her Lace and send her soaring.

They made their way upstairs, finally finding an empty room after interrupting multiple make out sessions, some more heated than others.

"I never realized these high school parties were so cliché." Lacey laughed, stepping deeper into the bedroom as Danny closed and locked the door behind them.

"How come I never see you at any of these cliché high school parties?" He leaned against the door, arms folded, watching her. She moved around the room slowly with her back to him. Danny didn't think it was possible but the ridiculous lava lamps that were glowing made her look even sexier. Something about the iridescent blue shading her mocha skin sent a jolt of appreciation between his legs.

"Well the Ultimate Fighter usually comes on Saturday nights and-"

"Oh yeah that's mixed martial arts stuff right? You're into that?" he was a little taken aback.

Lacey closed her eyes for a second. She'd told him about her basic obsession with all things UFC during their history project. The fact that he completely forgot stung like lemonade in a paper cut. She turned to face him, forcing a smile. Maybe it was best that he forgot. Total knock-outs and brutal take-downs weren't part of the new persona.

"Me? Uh no not really I just uh I like to watch hot guys in spandex." she could barely believe the words as they came out of her mouth.

"Sooo what I'm hearing is that you like hot guys?" Danny let his head tilt to the side, his voice drop to a spine tingling rasp, and his eyes roam territorially.

"Whaaaat? Are you kidding?" Lacey quickly swallowed to steady her nervous tone, "I'm ALL about the hot guys and the cute clothes a-and uh...make uuuup and...etcetera..." she trailed off as the most intense heat of humiliation ascended within her. The only saving grace? Danny hadn't turned on the lights when they came in and the juvenile lava lamps weren't bright enough to reveal just how much she was blushing.

There was the smirk again.

Danny was enjoying her nervousness. A majority of the girls he'd been with knew they were sexy as hell and were eager to impress him.. But every now and then he'd get a shy one and that was a nice change of pace sometimes.

Lacey bit her bottom lip and tried to regain some sense of composure. Danny would never like her if she morphed into Awkward Girl with the power to make every situation super uncomfortable.

"Um...is this Archie's room?" she pointed a thumb over her shoulder at some of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit pages plastered on the wall.

Danny couldn't care less who's room they were in. If he had to seduce this girl in his best friend's bedroom, on his best friend's bed then Archie would just have to take one for the team.

He pushed off the door and slowly moved toward her, looking every bit the prowling tiger.

"How come I didn't see this side of you during our science project last year?" his voice was almost like a warm, masculine touch all its own and Lacey felt every inch of her skin rejoice in goosebumps. She could barely find the courage to reply let alone remind him it was a history project.

"Uuuh I-I don't know just decided to change up my look recently. Very recently." She breathed. He was standing barely an inch in front of her. Their body heat mingled and Lacey felt like she was about to fucking lose it, seriously.

"Well it's a huge improvement." his lips brushed hers as they pursed on the "pro" in "improvement". He gave her one more heart stopping smirk, "I like it."

And then they were kissing like kisses were going out of business and they needed to stock up ASAP. Lacey, with what little of her rational mind was left, wasn't sure if she should be offended by the 'huge improvement' thing. She couldn't have looked that bad bef-

She gasped against his mouth when those strong hands grabbed her waist and yanked her closer. Lacey wrapped her arms around his neck for some kind of stability. She was not about to faint in front of Danny Desai just because her dumb legs didn't know the difference between human flesh and Jell-O. What she didn't know, though, was that Danny's more sensitive area just happened to be the back of his neck. Once the nude colored acrylic of her manicure scratched against his taut skin, he released a low groan that surprised her. A good surprise that caused a burst of tingles between her thighs.

His tongue forced it's way between her ruby red lips. One lazy swipe from it and she felt a shiver start from her abdomen and roll up to her collarbone. Danny ground into her mercilessly. The semi-hard bulge beneath his zipper pressed heatedly against her super-sensitivity. Unable to speak, to sigh, to end such pleasurable torture, Lacey let all of her body's tension do whatever felt right. She found herself wrapping her arms around to cradle his head, pulling herself closer to him and frowning beautifully in tender satisfaction. Danny's hands migrated to her ass, then a quick detour to her thighs, kneading the soft flesh there. Thank the almighty Sari-be for forcing her to shave her legs before the party.

Another bout of slow, full-frontal friction and a moan rushed up Lacey's throat without permission. But she didn't have the mental capacity to be embarrassed about it. He was occupying all 5 of her senses: taste, touch, smell, sight, and hearing. Shit, if she had the 6th one she'd probably be sensing the ghost of Danny's virginity because that thing's obviously been gone for a loooong time.

He began to walk backwards, pulling her with him. Before she could even understand her position in time and space, Lacey was on her back on Archie Yates' bed, Danny was on top of her, and the kiss was broken. It surprised her how hard she was breathing. Somewhere in the fuzziness of her brain she remembered an old Cosmo magazine cover saying something about kissing and burning calories. Or maybe it was sex.

"Sssss..." she heard herself hissing as Danny sucked a soft spot on her neck and his hand found an even softer spot below her waist. Hoooly shit it was really happening. Kissing country was disappearing in the rear view while she and Danny did 90 to Fuck-ville. She found some semblance of a voice just as his thumb skimmed the extreme tip of her throbbing clit.

"Danny..."

His name pushed itself across her lips in a low, slow whisper that sounded like a important proclamation, like she wanted to breathe that name until she couldn't anymore. Infinitely more turned on by it, Danny almost missed the fact that she was trying to get his attention more than encourage his actions. It took a good amount of concentration to will his body still. He froze over her, one hand supporting his weight and the other tense and waiting in her panties.

"What's wrong?" he panted.

"I just..."

But Lacey wasn't sure what she just. Danny, her crush for the past year, the only guy she had ever considered giving a glimpse into her heart, was hovering over her with wild hair, lustful eyes, and red lipstick smeared around his mouth. All of it, yes even the lipstick part, made her want him more. And rather than wonder what that suggested about her sexuality, Lacey struggled to find the right words.

"It just seems like we're moving really really REALLY crazy super fucking fast and I-I don't know we don't even really know each other."

"Sure we do." he licked his lips and gave her the most convincing smile he could, considering his dick was pressing painfully against the front of his jeans. He needed to diffuse the situation ASAP. "I'm Danny..." his lips met with her clavicle on the left side, "I like soccer..." a sweet kiss half an inch above her areola, "I'm 18 years old and..." Tongue and lips against her neck, then that mischievous thumb pressing against the bundle of nerves in her purple thong. Her body shuddered, sending out a quiet moan of submission to bounce off of the walls. Danny's amused eyes were the last things she saw before hers closed of their own accord. "...I love making you do that." he rasped.

'Holy hell'! Lacey shouted in her mind. 'Could her be any sexier!? Is it even legal for him to be THIS sexy already!?'

He moved his thumb in slow circles, shooting fireworks behind her eyelids.

"And I also know that you like the hot guys of the UFC." he whispered, placing a kiss between her breasts. Lacey's eyes popped open. "You're all abou makeup and clothes." he kissed dangerously close to her nipple again.

"W-..." she couldn't say 'wait' because Danny's relentless thumb was suddenly sending sharp tingles shooting up through her belly.

He grinned at her, "And you're great at science projects."

"B-b-but Dan...ny..." was all she managed to moan through the shock waves as they brought her closer and closer to something huge.

"And you are," he kissed her lips gently, "the most beautiful girl I've ever seen."

His thumb stopped just as she reached the edge but his words still threatened to push her over. Her heart swelled to fill her chest and Lacey sighed, unsure if the tremors she felt just then were orgasmic or of sudden realization. No guy had ever called her beautiful before. Ever.

She kissed him.

Something took over and wouldn't allow her to be nervous in that moment. All she really needed then was for him to call her Lace, to be _his_ Lace.

Danny unzipped his jeans and pulled the elastic waistband of his boxers down to rest just below his erection. And all while kissing Lacey senseless. He reached over and grabbed a condom from Archie's nightstand stash. The sexiest girl at the party softly brushed her tongue across his bottom lip as he rolled the latex down. By the time he had their lips free and her breath stolen, Danny was more than ready.

Lacey gasped for the millionth time that night as he pushed inside of her slowly. A lifetime of TV had prepared her for pain but not the weird, sharp but aching sensation penetrating her guts. She winced and groaned despite her best efforts.

"Shit." Danny mumbled, pushing up to the hilt. She was so much tighter than he was used to it slowly, torturously blew his mind. The friction between them, her nails digging into his shoulders, he began to thrust a little faster.

Lacey tried to keep her eyes open. This was kind of a big deal after all. But the pain was almost too much and Danny wasn't looking at her anyway. He had his head thrown back, staring at the wall or the ceiling or the headboard. She squeezed her eyes shut tightly and tried to catch her breath because, Jesus Christ, the pain was NOT letting up! Still, her heart continue to hammer out of affection more than anything. She knew that, once she was officially his Lace and he was her Danny, they'd have time to practice, to fall deeper, and do all that other mushy stuff she secretly longed for.

"Fuck." Danny whispered, increasing speed, "God you feel so good Stace."

Her eyes flew open.

"W-what?" she grimaced as he hit a particularly painful spot.

"Shit, Stacy. You feel so fucking good." He groaned again.

Lacey barely had time to fully register what was said when the very muscle fibers of her heart abruptly ripped apart. She gasped in agonizing surprise, which prompted Danny to bury his face in her neck and litter it with empty kisses. What the fuck was happening? Had he heard Phoebe say 'Stacy' earlier that night? Did he really just call her 'Stace' when she'd been yearning, YEARNING with every cell in her body, with all the boundlessness of her imagination for the past YEAR, to watch his full lips and hear his velvet voice call her...'Lace'?

The flimsy rags of her heart ripped again and she cried out in disbelief. There was so much he didn't know about her. He didn't know that she was definitely NOT all about clothes and hot guys. He didn't know that she was hopelessly in love with him. He didn't know that she was allergic to peanuts. He didn't know that she was a virgin 12 minutes ago. He didn't know that her mom died in a car crash when she was 10 years old. Lacey was giving her most intimate possessions, her heart and her body, to a guy who didn't even really know her name anymore.

Danny continued to push into her with a thumping pace that seemed to match the pounding beat downstairs. He panted and grunted like a vicious predator conquering his prey.

Once again saved by the room's eerie darkness, Lacey pressed the side of her face into the pillow and, for the first time since February 3rd, 2007, she cried.


End file.
